Thanks. Having given some more thought to the concept, it appears IMO that all four Realms can be thought as the expression of an archetypal concept (Righteousness, Wickedness, Nature, and Story) in all its manifold manifestations.
To a great degree, the Realms appear to be fueled, shaped, and directed by human belief and emotion, and determines most of their power and features, but not entirely, since they also appear to have a significant degree of self-direction and the ability to tap sources of power not directly related to humanity.
This may be justified in several ways: as it is appears to some degree, some embodiments of the Realms (creatures, spirits) have the ability to acquire self-direction and sentience, and hence to shape them beyond the intervention of humanity; not just humanity, but also the other parts of reality have to some lesser degree the ability to shape and influence the Realm in a similar way; and the Archetypes that generate the Realms are embedded in the primal structure of reality, and this connection also fuels and shapes them beyond the intervention of humanity; last, but not least, the imprint caused by human belief/emotion on the Realms has a lasting quality, so many manifestations that do not appear to be related to current beliefs are actually realted to the ones of ages past, even if the current expressions of the collective unconscious are paramount if determining the current power level of the Realms.
A minor quibble about a previously-discussed point: notwithstanding what I've stated or agreed previously, I've reread the relevant bits in TMRE, and I've come to the conclusion that the rituals involved in immortality methods are not subject to the limitations created by Rigid Magic and Unstructured Caster. This for two reasons: first, it is stated that those "rituals" are not true Hermetic Ritual spells, but are only treated as such for game-mechanic purposes, and actually are either time-consuming preparations or non-Hermetic magical rituals. Therefore, they are not subject to Flaws that affect Hermetic magic. Moreover, the ability to make them is always granted by an Initiation, which always happens after such a Flaw is gained, and as such the Initiation trumps the Flaw, since its whole purpose to allow the immortality method.
Puissant Magic Theory affects the associated lab totals. So does Inventive Genius. Wouldn't Deficient Technique? And so on.
Since they are treated as such for game mechanics, and flaws are a game mechanic as much as virtues.... By the way, these Flaws do not specify Hermetic Magic. One says "you cannot use vis when you cast spells." Period. The other, "you may not learn ritual spells." Period.
The ability to cast it is not granted by Initiation, only the ability to learn the ritual--and that, only if the character can otherwise learn it, which requires sufficiently high Arts scores, and so on.
We get back to the fact that the "ritual" in question is a lab activity, not a spell. I thing it's clear, and I think it shows in the fact that it is easy to get help doing it the first time, to peg the lab total. If it were a ritual spell, there would be a roll to check for a botch (all ritual spells use a stress die) and with the amount of vis in question (one die per pawn of vis!) you are looking at an almost guaranteed twilight episode. Good luck finding volunteers for that!
Just because you want it to be easy doesn't make it so.
The ritual has to be learned, it also has to be cast. Since there are actual rules for casting rituals, which do not have to be made up, it makes sense that these actual rules are actually used, barring explicit rules to the contrary, such as the rules for Longevity Rituals.
If you don't like the rules, fine. That's another issue entirely.
Are you guys talking about "Ascendent Form of the Intendant Hierarch"?
If you are it's on page 82 of the mysteries revised and says "This is specified and researched as a Ritual spell, but is really a rite of the Mystery."
So... it's not exactly a ritual spell, like other ritual spells.
Yup. It says "By means of this Virtue, a hierarch may devise two ritual spells to enable his ascension to the heavens, or at least to the remnant pagan pantheon (or, as the cruder, secular Hermetics might say, into the pages of the Daimonic bestiary). These two ritual spells are non-Hermetic Mystery Rituals —for game mechanic purposes they are designed and cast as spells, but they are non-Hermetic magic."
More poignantly, about Living Ghost ones, it says "The magus must invent versions of the Mystery spells Bind the Living Ghost and Transformation of the Living Ghost. The rituals are described in terms of Hermetic spells, but this is just to describe the process of working in the laboratory to prepare them — they are really time-consuming preparations for the coming Ordeal of death."
Therefore, AttHoH rituals are non-Hermetic special ritual spells, and it is questionable whether they are subject to the normal limitations for Hermetic ritual spells. But more importantly, LG rituals are no ritual spells at all, they are special non-Hermetic lab activities, they are only described in terms of ritual spells for ease of calculating their effects. But they are as akin to normal ritual spells as Longevity Rituals, i.e. in name only.
Great Elixir is explictly stated to be a Mystery Enchantment, and faerie Becoming as a laboratory activity.
Therefore, there may be a reasonable argument about making AttHoH rituals subject to the rules for ritual spells, but the other immortality methods are clearly not ritual spells, but special Mystery lab activities that in one case (LG) are treated as ritual spells for ease of referring their effects. But they are no more subject to the Flaws that limit ritual spells than Longevity Rituals are.
Having recently gone through a more attentive reading of the Gruagach tradition in HMRE, I have become convinced that Gruagachan arts can be very useful for spont-casters. Besides bestowing a variant of Diedne Magic that carries no blood feud with the Tremere, the right combination of Gr. Arts can allow a mage to grow to +3 Size with a Sun GvSh 4 spell, +5 Size with a GvSh 15 spell. Fatigue levels bounty !!!
This easily beats both Heartbeast and Shapeshifter. The only advantage those Virtues keep (not a trivial one, although) is that neither gives Warping if kept for prolonged times, while a Gr. transformation spell does.